1. Field
The present application relates to an incubation observing apparatus observing a culturing state of an iPS cell colony, an image processing apparatus and an image processing method applied thereto when differentiated somatic cells are initialized to generate induced pluripotent stem cells (cells having pluripotency and proliferation potency near ES cells, and hereinafter it is referred to as “iPS cells”).
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, when iPS cells derived from mouse are generated, a mouse in which fluorescent protein gene (EGFP gene) is inserted into a locus of ECAT4 (Nanog) recognized as a pluripotency-maintaining genes is used to visualize presence/absence of initialization of cells. In this case, the EGFP becomes an initialization marker, and it is possible to verify whether or not the cells are initialized by presence/absence of fluorescence (refer to Non-Patent Document 1: Keisuke Okita, Tomoko Ichisaka, and Shinya Yamanaka, “Generation of germline-competent induced pluripotent stem cells”, Nature Vol 448, 19 Jul. 2007, P313-317, and so on).
However, a usage of a marker gene should be avoided when iPS cells derived from human are generated for a usage of regenerative medicine.
A proposition of the present application is to provide an image processing apparatus, an incubation observing apparatus, and an image processing method capable of discriminating presence/absence of initialization of cells without using a marker gene such as a fluorescent protein gene.